The South Africa of His Heart

It is 1976, the American Bicentennial and the summer of the Soweto student riots in South Africa. The massacres sparked world awareness of the horrors of apartheid and, many believe, were the catalyst for the eventual fall of apartheid fourteen years later when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison.

A twenty-two year old woman enrolls in a college prep program in Harlem and meets a South African expatriate thirty-plus years her senior. He is there teaching English. Amidst the turmoil of that summer, they fall in love, marry and make plans to move to Nigeria.

Set in New York, the Caribbean, London, South Africa and Los Angeles The South Africa of His Heart is a moving thirty-year memoir about how the circles in life can lead us to astounding places-often by chance. Ms. James shares the true story of the lifelong impact her South African husband made on her life.

What unfolds is a touching, unconventional love story about dedication and a spiritual connection that bridged their physical separations. In a series of fateful discoveries, many years after their last encounter, she uncovers surprising and profound revelations about her first husband.

EXCERPT:

Our lives are made up of both reflections of what might have been and acceptance of what is, on the steady progression of the years we build with the ones we love, and the fantasies of the ones we wished had loved us more or differently. But then, in between that steady progression of sure and comfortable years, we have days or nights that are made up of magical encounters with beautiful people, encounters that change the course of our lives, and that make up the memories we recall in our last breath.